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What Employee Lock-In Means At Facebook
theodp writes "In the early days of Facebook, the company would go into what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called lockdown, where no one is supposed to leave until the task at hand is done. Speaking on Saturday at Startup School 2013, CNET reports, Mark Zuckerberg remarked that the practice persists to this day. Facebook doesn't lock people in the office, but it comes "as close to that as we can legally get," Zuckerberg said to an eruption from the crowd. The lockdown isn't the first at-home-in-a-Bangladesh-garment-factory management technique Zuck's touted at Startup School. Back in 2007, Zuckerberg drew fire for advising company founders "you should only hire young people with technical expertise" if they want to be successful. And while there are no reports of Facebook hiring 9-year-old bosses yet, the LA Times reports that only young undocumented immigrants are welcome at the hackathon hosted by Zuckerberg's FWD.us next month where "tech CEO's like Mark Zuckerberg, Reid Hoffman, Drew Houston and Andrew Mason will be sitting side-by-side with undocumented youth [with technical expertise] creating tech products to help the immigration reform movement" (invitation to 'day (and night) of working')."
Why are illegal immigrants being called undocumented? The are documented, by their countries of origin. The reason they are undocumented in the US is because they are here ILLEGALLY. They have no right to claim legal status when they did not go through the proper legal process. IMO, these people are brazenly flouting our immigration laws without any fear of prosecution which only encourages more illegal immigration. This has to stop.
Illegal is illegal.
Maybe you need young people, because they are stupid enough to think that spending hours for your employer is a great way to spend the precious little free time you'll have in your life. I used to think it was cool to spend 3-4 days at a demo party just hacking away. Now I would rather sleep, exercise and keep myself in good shape without worrying about crashing and trying to make up for lack of sleep.
Conflating two stories that shouldn't be conflated: the FWD.us hackathon isn't a Facebook-employee lock-in. It's (basically) a publicity stunt designed to help / help raise awareness for immigration reform. That has nothing to do with any tyrannical measures Zuckerberg is taking as CEO.
genuinely curious. if you have time to arrest and send people out for making remarks on twitter how come undocumented(I assume that's double speak for illegally working) immigrants can hold public meetings?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
and I admit to not reading the many links, but taking the article at face value (dangerous I know)
BUT
if all of it is true and accurate, it sounds like Mr. Z is a world-class asshole and is trying to bring back the dark days of robber barons building their wealth on the backs/lives of indentured servants...
Yet one more reason (like you needed another really) not to use Facebook
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
That's the true goal of these companies, and a big reason they're all so keen on H1B1.
These big tech fucks move into a town, drive the real estate prices sky-high so you basically have to be upper management to own a place outside the "campus", and if not then you must either live well outside the critical radius and spend at least an hour commuting (good luck with your family), or opt to live within company provided housing ( http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Facebook-partner-to-build-Menlo-Park-housing-4860826.php ).
But this has been done before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town. Sigh. So wearisome.
tl;dr - if you want to be a huge success in business, you need to be an a**hole
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
A fine example of leadership without empathy.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Sounds like ZB figured out the truth about America and is acting upon it. The only way to hire people is to ensure that they have little ability to appeal to the American court system.
You can't handle the truth.
If I had any interest at all in working for the latest version of MySpace.com, this might be upsetting, but I don't, so who cares?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Admitting to age discrimination are we?
Of course not. Our HR department's compliance specialists would love to assure you that no such violations are taking place. Now, as an unfortunate matter of fact, old, uncool, balding sickies with 'families' and 'lives outside work' happen to be a poor fit for our company culture, and our hiring process takes ensuring the continuation of the company's innovative culture very seriously; but all applications are given the consideration that the law requires.
I think bosses prefer hiring HB-1s and illegals because it gives them something powerful to hold over the employees head. If the employee feels secure in their life, then they are more likely to challenge the employer and stand up for reasonable rights. So, "immigration reform" to these companies is a way for them to legalize slavery while importing people whose only goal is to export as much of their paycheck back to their home countries as possible.
And seriously, employee lock-ins? Why do people put up with that crap? Is working at a social media company, which will most like be replaced by another social media company within five years, some great honor? People need to have some respect for themselves.
There's nothing in the linked articles to suggest that these "lock-ins" are any different than what many other companies do, especially start-ups, when there is a crucial problem at hand. (To me this 'necessity' sometimes indicates poor management and planning, other times perhaps it's needed). I notice that the first Google result I found isn't mentioned in the summary. It clarifies a bit what the lockdown means, apparently doesn't mean no one is allowed to leave the office or other such nonsense. The link to the Bangladeshi factory story appears to be an absurd comparison.
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I assume that's double speak for illegally working
Undocumented means exactly what it you think the word means. It means there is no documentation available to prove the person's citizenship status. If I were to lose certain important documents, I would be undocumented and I'm a US citizen. Often immigrants who are here illegally are also undocumented but undocumented does not mean illegal and illegal does not mean undocumented.
I worked for a place like that. It went out of business when all the employees got fed up, found new jobs and left.
It's transparent and red? I think we've just discovered the Invisible Pink Unicorn equivalent of the devil...!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not stupid, but desperate. Getting a well-paid job isn't easy these times, you know.
Well paid?
If you consider all the hours, stress, and bullshit one has to put up with from billionaires who got real lucky, the pay in software development sucks.
I have a relative who is an electrician for a utility. He works less annual hours but with the storm overtime and shift differentials, he pulls in over $100K (after union dues) - AND he has a pension.
AND his job can't get off-shored.
Sure there are some late nights freezing his ass off, but at least he's PAID for it. Oh, and at 50+, he (and everyone else his age or older) hasn't "aged out" like many of us do in this industry.
We have Cannonball Runs, where our developers and engineers work long days, enjoy company-provided, catered meals, and concierge services to help in their absence at home, and of course preems, which are financial incentives for accelerating the schedule.
It's about as far from what this asshole is doing as you can get, but we get fantastic results, and the work product is very high quality. That's why I spend the money to do it. It does cost money - about $5k/day for a team of 10 people (I refuse to call them "resources").
Are pretty much just a bribe to Congress and Obama to let him continue to be a white slaver. DREAM act my ass.
Seriously. Show up at invitations to illegal aliens like this and arrest all those who are here illegally. Then fine the crap out of whoever sponsored such an event. Zuck is making money off of slave labor yet no one wants to call him out on his tactics?
You want a project done fast, offer incentive...
He does offer an incentive. Either work until you're dead tired or you're fired. And that partnered with the collusive hiring practices that go on in Silicon Valley (and you'd be naive to think only Apple, Google and Intel are the only ones doing this rather than just being the only ones caught doing it) you'll likely be facing a hard time getting another job.
It's not a slur for me. I honestly couldn't care less what race/ethnicity someone in this country is. Here's what anger me about illegal immigration:
A few points. First, I don't consider our right to control who enters our borders to be tyrannical. (I do agree that there are cases where enforcing the law is immoral, as with the examples you gave.)
I'd also be more accepting of having unenforced laws on the books if it was for very brief periods. But instead what we seem to end up with is a legal code that monotonically grows. I see that as incompatible with the doctrine that "ignorance of the law is no excuse". Our legal code is so large now that we basically have ex post facto laws: the government can always find something to arrest anyone for, if they really care to. To me this is a great evil.
shouldn't the word also "Illegal" refer to people who've committed bank fraud, theft, murder, rape or other heinous crimes?
If you prefer, but I think "criminal" or "felon" are better words. By comparison the word "illegal" is pretty mild, as it can refer to something as minor as a civil violation. Do you think we should use the milder term to refer to people who've committed bank fraud, theft, murder, rape or other heinous crimes?
It's always a sign of the weakness of a left-wing political argument when advocates for a position overtly or more subtly make opposition to their positions a symptom of or an overt act of "racism".
The debate surrounding immigration is a great example of this. If you are opposed to illegal immigration (that is, bypassing border controls, overstaying a visa, working without work permission, etc) you are increasingly labeled racist, presumably because you aren't really opposed to migrant labor, you're opposed to Latinos.
This is too bad, because I think there are a lot of ways in which easier migration from outside our borders (Latino, or otherwise) has a lot of negative consequences.
One obvious example that seldom gets mentioned is the unemployment rate among African Americans. This figure is often quite high -- 15-20% or more depending on the measure. The jobs taken by illegal immigrants are almost always low-skill, entry-level jobs, the same jobs that young, unskilled African Americans could take.
If you're concerned about African American unemployment, you should naturally be concerned about wage depression and competition for these jobs by illegal immigrants. Isn't supporting a lenient immigration policy which keeps African Americans unemployed the real racist policy?
And then there's affordable housing, health care, schools, and so on, all of which are pressured by large numbers of low-skilled immigrants.
Sure, we're all upset by the crooks in the system (although I would argue that Madoff, Stewart and Abramoff are all distractions, not the real problem), but the rich and the power structure gain by wage depression and keeping the working classes on edge through unlimited low-skilled job competition. High wages and a "seller's market" for labor actually keep pressure on the corporate elite.
In the US, IT workers in startups will sometimes take very low compensation in exchange for stock options. We do have minimum wage laws, but above and beyond those, you can offer many types of "compensation" to attract workers -- retirement plan, corporate car, etc.
So imagine that in 2020, tech companies start cutting back cash compensation in exchange for alternatives which, on the face of it, have greater value: e.g., I can either give you $1000, or $3000 equivalent of company dollars which you can use to pay rent on a company-run apartment which is walking distance to work, buy groceries in the company store which is right in that apartment complex, etc. Which would you take? It depends on your circumstances. But you can guarantee that a smart company would rig the circumstances so that it ultimately works in their favor at your expense. This actually happened in the US in the 19th century: an awful time to be a worker here.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
The fact that two people missed the sarcasm enough to feel that it was worth commenting gives me the unpleasant suspicion that people who aren't being sarcastic apply this theory of hiring with some frequency...
Most people behind tech startups that did well have very little understanding of why they succeeded while the dozens of companies just like them with equally talented people did not.... and their self image does not really allow for 'you got lucky, right time right place' so they come up with all sorts of rationalizations for why they are so much better then everyone else, when in reality... if you have 10 companies doing something and there is only room for 1 titan, chances are luck is going to be the deciding factor, not some special sauce.